Crescent City, Calif. (AP) -- A tsunami swept at least five people watching the waves out to sea Friday and ripped docks out of harbors in California, spreading the destruction of a devastating Japanese earthquake to the shores of the United States. Four people were rescued from the water in Oregon, but one man who was taking photos in Northern California was still missing Friday afternoon. Coast Guard helicopters searched for him near the mouth of the Klamath River in Del Norte County, Calif., after his two friends made it back to shore.

Fresh off her national “Louisiana Purchase” outrage, Sen. Mary Landrieu has a full dance card back in New Orleans over the next few days. Her companions for the Crescent City one-night stands on the calendar are, shall we say, interesting. On Saturday, Landrieu is set to give the welcome speech at a rather out-of-the-mainstream event – this time, she’ll be addressing the New Orleans premiere of Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. So as we can see, Landrieu is largely supporting a propaganda film in making her appearance and speech at Saturday’s premiere. And her neighbors at the...

It is difficult sometimes to decide which disaster was more unmitigated: Hurricane Katrina or the federal response. In the more than three years since Katrina ravaged the Central Gulf Coast, U.S. taxpayers have spent $107 billion rebuilding the region so inhabitants can return to harm's way. And the fool's errand continues apace. Katrina breached the 350-mile network of levees around New Orleans in at least 50 spots. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in midst of a $14 billion project to rebuild the levees to withstand the force of water and winds of a storm that statistically strikes every...

NEW ORLEANS â€” Police expect protests but few problems when the two-day North American Leaders Summit gets under way Monday in New Orleans. It's VIP duty as President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper get together to talk trade. But for the New Orleans Police Department, it's more of the same in a a string of high-profile, crowd-generating events early in 2008. The North American summit in Quebec last August drew several hundred protesters vocal on the war in Iraq and what they claimed was a gradual merging of the three countries. There also were...

New Orleans' local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, is blasting President Bush for his handling of response to Hurricane Katrina, and is calling for heads to roll within his administration. "Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially," the paper states today in an open letter to Bush in its print edition.